


Waning Moon

by TheArchaeologist



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Flails wildly at the other tags, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, I can't decide how to tag that, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Friendship, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Jaskier | Dandelion deserves a dog, Sickfic, There's some comfort but like, Whump, Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23845057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArchaeologist/pseuds/TheArchaeologist
Summary: For three days they argued, they snapped, they struggled, and they tried desperately to save the life of the one who still had so many more years left to live.Their efforts were for naught.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 157





	Waning Moon

It was supposed to be old age.

Geralt kneels on the bare floorboards, his head dipped, his brow low. Against his cheek he can feel the cool breeze of midnight air, whistling in through the cracks of the inn walls. With it carry smells of stables and crops rotting from month-long rains, the stench of mud and water-sodden timbre thick and floating like an undercurrent.

Across the room there is lilac and gooseberries, though muffled under the smoking crackles of the fire, and on the bed at his side is sickness, sweat, blood and death.

A log snaps and tumbles further into the pile of flames. Yennefer glances at it, her hair hanging down and brushing against the material of her dress. The dark fabric reflects the orange glow, catching the rings she has pulled onto her fingers and making the gleaming metal dance.

Wheezing, soft and weak and light, consumes the room.

It was supposed to be old age.

Whenever he pictured it, because considering his lifespan Geralt had no choice but to, he always saw Jaskier elderly, white haired and lined skin, grinning with dim eyes as the Witcher swung by whatever neck of the woods he eventually settled in. There would be a cane, probably with a nicely carved wolf head for the handle that he would show off to visitors, and shaking, creaking fingers which continued to pluck the delicate strings of his beloved lute.

Sometimes, on the days Geralt allows himself to feel as close to wistful as he can manage, there might be a dog at the bard’s side, curled over his cold feet or sprawled in front of a roaring fireplace, accepting titbits of morsels from the dinner table where it would beg and whimper and roll large eyes.

The breed of the dog changed, depending on the imaginings. In his mind’s eye, it was always something big, something protective, something Geralt could pat on the head and know would keep a level-headed care over its aging owner. However, he also knows Jaskier, understands his tastes and his habits, so more than likely it would be a small, pretty, yappy thing with a gorgeous name and flighty temper.

Jaskier would let it sleep on the bed, and crawl onto his lap, and it would growl amusingly whenever the _white wolf_ dared to come near its beloved human. They would laugh at the absurdity of the image, and Yennefer, if she were there, would say the dog and bard were two peas in a pod.

It would be spoiled to the heavens and back. It would be doted and cherished and _loved_ , the darling of a man who knew he only had so many left to adore in his life. 

Then, when the dark horse finally came and swept him away like a whisper in the night, the dog would find a home under a certain Mage’s care, because even if she remained aloof and sharp as a whip, Yennefer would not be able to resist accepting the companionship of the bundle of fluff that brought such joy to a man’s last years.

A cough, one that holds no energy and fails to help the body at all, jerks through Jaskier’s chest, and Geralt watches, listens, his hands resting uselessly on his lap.

“Yennefer.” He says simply, but his voice holds weight and meaning, even if the conviction has since fizzled out and perished.

The forever rains pour outside, and night draws in black and empty.

Sat at the table with shoulders hanging low, Yennefer narrows her eyes at him, but under the suppression of the room they contain no trace of malice.

She talks steady. “There’s nothing to be done, Geralt.”

He knows. It has taken three days, but he now knows.

It was supposed to be old age.

Nodding once, he swallows, and looks at her. “For the pain?”

Pinching her lips, she tilts her head towards Jaskier, towards the bard she has only ever snipped and snapped at, and somehow formed a truce and understanding out of those strange, skeletal bones of acquaintance.

“At this stage,” She says slowly, “I don’t think it would be felt.”

Letting his gaze sink back to the floor, Geralt chews on his tongue, only glancing up again as Jaskier’s fingers twitch at the tips.

Fever rages through him, brightening his cheeks but leaving them shallow, his eyes settling back into his skull. Hair, once kept and brushed and flicked constantly as it fell across his vision, sticks to his forehead and down the side of his face, plastered there unwashed and matted. Three days ago, while beginning to drown under the oncoming suffering, he was still talking, still chatting, still watching the room with a teasing gaze and shaky smirk.

Now, all that has been scorched away, melted like ice in the sun, and the only movement comes from the gasping of his mouth, the struggling rise and fall of his chest, and an odd flinch from whatever dream is set to be the bard’s last, the one he will never get the chance to tell Geralt as they travel along.

“Do you know if he has family?” Yennefer asks quietly, her head turned away from him as she stares out at the crying night.

Geralt watches the floorboards again, studying the smooth knots of the wood. “I have the family name, but I’m of the understanding that things are…Estranged, between them.”

“Would he want to go back, given the choice?”

“I don’t think he would, no.”

Yennefer makes no further comment.

Across the room, flung there in a rage since evaporated, bandages and bottles and pots of healing cream lay scattered and broken, spilling contents and unravelling loosely, dirtying on the ground and being rendered unusable. There is a splatter on the wall where a bowl filled with liquid hit, denting from the force, and the faintest drops of blood lingering in the doorway, trailing off down the inn’s stairs.

On the bed, there is a weak gasp, and both heads snap up as Jaskier goes deathly still for a moment before trickling in another breath, faint, unsteady, barely offering any intake for his needing lungs.

It was supposed to be _old age._

As steady as an ancient oak in a flood, Yennefer stands, and briefly their eyes catch before she crosses the room, perching on the edge of the bed in front of Geralt beside Jaskier’s head. A hand reaches out, hesitant at first but then with resolve, brushing against the blazing forehead and raking carefully back through the tangles of hair.

Jaskier’s eyes move once under her touch, but do not open.

The wheezing stops, leaving only the feeble attempts to draw in air in their wake, ailing, pathetic, unable to complete the task that comes so naturally to all beings from the moment of their birth.

“Shh.” Yennefer whispers, a solid presence between them. “Shh.”

Slowly, as if he were carefully going to tame a flighty colt newly separated from its mother, Geralt rests a palm against Jaskier’s bare arm, trained fingers easily finding the spot where the pulse should be.

It is there, just, a struggling butterfly caught beneath a silk handkerchief, and as the rain continues to weep and the fire snap, he knows there is nothing left for the bard’s body to give.

As unfair as the tides, Jaskier goes quietly, without ceremony or pomp, or his would-be dog. No sweet maidens weep outside his door, tearing their hair as they wail like sirens, and no music sings him into whatever beyond he steps forward to face.

There is just the quiet room of a nowhere inn, his bags still packed, and his songbook littered with the scrawls of promised lyrics.

Drawing her hand back, Yennefer swallows, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, knuckles stained white.

“How cruel.” She mutters, but what that is directed towards is anyone’s guess.

Keeping his grip on an arm slowly losing its unnatural heat, Geralt tips his face downwards and allows his eyes to close, his chest deflating as he lets out a long, steady exhale that tastes bitter and foul on his tongue.

Together, two ageless souls mull the weight of the world and sit in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Am I even me if I don’t join a new fandom and instantly kill my favourite character?
> 
> [Tumblr](https://ancientstone.tumblr.com/)


End file.
